Customer Service Feedback

If you are enrolled in an HMO (Health Maintenance Organization), then perhaps you understand that unless your medical check-up is prearranged,  you are bound to experience  the  bureaucracy in the health service.

Here’s my experience:

I was requested by my doctor to undergo a stress test, to rule out initial findings in ecg. Since schedule  is only every  Monday afternoon, I coordinated with our HMO to make arrangement. I was given the first slot at 12:00 PM. I was also assured that the test will only be 1 1/2 to 2 hours, and that I will have to be in a sports attire when I go to the cardio lab.

Since this is in the middle of the day, I have to leave office before lunch and get back afterwards. I arrived 15 mins late from my appointment, and still catching my breath, and went straight to the cardio lab.

To my surprise, 12:00-1:00 is their lunch break and they only open their doors at 1PM.  As soon as they opened their doors, I approached the staff and said I was supposed to be scheduled at 12:00PM but the person I spoke to in the cardio lab demanded that I should  go down first to the cashier to validate something, a process that I need to do, before they can accommodate me.

At this point, my fuse blew up. I don’t mind going the usual bureaucratic process, but they should have advised us during the reservation stage. That’s exactly the reason why we made the call to make sure we both make use of our time productively. The cardio lab is in the upper floors and the cashier is in the ground floor, what a waste of time. I called up our HMO and complained of the shabby arrangements. The HMO rep also thought  that all is OK because that’s how they ended the conversation. No more other requirement and process, I’ll just show up in the lab. So in return, she get back to the person she spoke with.

Only until then, that they began to attend to me accordingly. But that’s without the usual smerk look on their faces because they failed to advise us of the cashier procedure, they are the ones who goes back and forth to the cashier which is not easy.  But I still have to wait for the doctor which arrived only at about 2:15 PM.

So I was only able to get back to the office at about around 4:00 PM ( I left at about 11:00 AM).

Hospitals in general, and maybe some doctors, are like gov’t offices and officials. They don’t know how to value other people’s time. They will ask you to come at a specific time, and make you wait. They will ask you to go from one person to another before you will be attended to. But if you pay cash, you can expect to receive special attention. But if you are using HMO or Health insurance, it’s another story. I wonder how are patients under charity are being treated?

This is a thumbs down experience alright. But this hospital also gave us good experience, my 2 kids were born here, and my kids pedia, and wifey’s OB are also here. A few bad eggs I suppose?